How Refused Derived Fuel (RDF) Solve Waste Problems in Indonesia?
UNPAGE Indonesia - Refused Derived Fuel (RDF) is a technology capable of converting waste into energy, recovering recyclable materials, reducing carbon emissions, and reducing the use of fossil fuels.
RDF technology is relatively new, but we can see the progress of its development. One of them is the Regional Waste Processing and Final Processing Site in Lulut Village, Bogor. The area with an area of 15 hectares is able to produce RDF 577-630 tons/day with an investment cost of Rp694 billion.
The fuel produced from RDF applies to all scales of thermal technology, both small and large. So that it can be applied to production from the community level to the massive commercial level.
RDF has seven different sources of waste according to the American Society for Testing and Materials. In general, it is obtained from various types of combustible and harmless waste fractions from the output of household and industrial activities. RDF source categories are divided into two, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Industrial Solid Waste (ISW).
Meanwhile, environmental scientist Pham Thi Thuy Trang divided the RDF into three groups. They are RDF-MS (type of RDF that can be produced from MSW), RDF-IMC (type of RDF that can be produced from ISW, MSW, and construction waste obtained from industrial activities), then RDF-IS (RDF in the form of gas).
50.1% of MSW resources can be utilized to generate RDF resources. Meanwhile, ISW reached 86.8%, including typical industrial solid waste and industrial sludge.
Sources from MSW have lower conversion rates. This is due to the high fraction of food and agricultural waste, the relatively low calorific value compared to other types of waste.
Mustafa Kara, a researcher at the TUBITAK Marmara Research Center revealed that RDF is able to reduce carbon/CO2 emissions and the production of coal clinker in the cement industry. The 15% RDF used can reduce CO2 emissions by 633 kg/hour and save up to $629.04/year in costs.
Most of the RDF for cement kilns comes from MSW and agricultural waste. Having previously been cut, sorted, and separated from metal and other materials that cannot be used as fuel. Then the resulting material is converted into fine, solid, burnt, or other forms such as pellets. This is commonly known as a co-processing mechanism.
In addition, RDF can also be used as a mixing/cofiring fuel for coal-fired power plants in Indonesia. Cofiring is a fuel combustion activity that uses a mixture of coal fuel with biomass fuel. To meet the need for cofiring, the Coal PLTU requires 4.15 million tons of biomass pellets per year or 749 thousand tons of waste pellets per year.
RDF can also be applied in Community based Waste to Energy (Tempat Olah Sampah Setempat/TOSS) by converting solid waste into pellets or briquettes for clean fuel. The scheme developed through bio-drying (peyeumisasi) in which solid waste is processed without leachate, without fertilization, and does not require special skills to operate the system.
Although classified as a small scale, TOSS has the potential to support Indonesia's cofiring plan by channeling its output to electric steam power plant. TOSS has the potential to operate MSW of up to 30 tons per day to meet cofiring needs at a ratio of 3-5%.